I panicked in Devils Throat at 122ft

[Hammerhead]

I cannot recall the name of the guy or the place he was diving but he was at about 800fsw and trying to recover a body. The dive did not go as planned because the body was stuck in the mud. His original intention was to simply descend to the bottom and slide a body bag over the deceased and use a lift bag to send him to the surface. Well...That isn't what happened...A good example of not diving your plan. He had to work to get the body unstuck, then the body lifted out of the mud and started floating around. This made it more difficult to get the body in the bag and therefore led to his having to exert himself much more which lead to increased CO2 levels that he wasn't able to blow off...which led to toxicity...which killed him...The story was run in Outside Magazine and I think there is a video of the whole thing...

rawls,

That was Dave Shaw, and I knew the guy. Not well, but socially - he was a nice guy.

I don't recommend watching the video. It's not very instructive, but it is very depressing.

Anyone who wants to can read the story here: -

Dave Shaw | Outside Online

Disclaimer - even the story is pretty harrowing.

 

[rawls]

rawls,

That was Dave Shaw, and I knew the guy. Not well, but socially - he was a nice guy.

I don't recommend watching the video. It's not very instructive, but it is very depressing.

Anyone who wants to can read the story here: -

Dave Shaw | Outside Online

Disclaimer - even the story is pretty harrowing.

Hammerhead...

Yeah...I read that article in Outside a long time ago and couldn't recall the name. Thanks. He must have been a great guy because you are among many who have conveyed this. And I agree that the story is pretty harrowing and very saddening. I found out that I was mistaken regarding his work of breathing, thinking it was during the actual recovery attempt that he succomed to the CO2 tox. He was breathing very hard at that point but he left when his computer said the dive was over. What ultimately caused him to lose consciousness was his getting entangled in the free floating line attached to the deceased divers body...I would tend to believe he would have survived that dive had he not become entangled, but that's Monday morning quaterbacking...We will never know...Very sad story...

I would tend to agree about the video...I watched it...also quite awhile back...The absolute worst thing for me was looking at him having alot of trouble with the scissors just before he lost consciousness...Extremely depressing...

 

[Hammerhead]

Like a lot of people who go to genuine extremes (Jon Bennett was also a friend of mine, and very similar), he was an extremely driven man. The family of Deon had accepted that Bushman's hole represented his final resting place, but Dave wanted to retreive him. I know that Deon's family took Dave's loss extremely hard.

As for exactly what happened, I believe it was likely that you're probably close in that the entanglement was the trigger, but that other factors including the initial silt out, the head falling off Deon's body (sorry, but it happened), the body itself spinning in 3D through the water all added up.

In the event, he was massively hyperventilating (30+ breaths a minute I think - I don't really want to read the article again) and blacked out / had a heart attack and drowned.

Incidentally, Mike Vickers, the Shaws' minister, said the eulogy for my father when he passed away two years go. Really lovely guy.

 

[limeyx]

LOL! Too much........ Anyway while you guys go around "Rule #1ing" everyone and keep diving helium in the quarry, I'll go out and explore the world and get some real dive experience.

Great -- while you are at it, mind sending me directions out of the quarry, I dont think I can find my way

2-3 mins at depth or not, the facts of this dive stand in my opinion.